Cathay Forest Products has begun shipping lumber from Russia to China via water transport to augment Cathay's current distribution of lumber from Russia to China using rail lines.
"Using barges allows us to transport greater volumes of wood at improved margins, said Anthony Ng, Cathay Forest's president and CEO. "This activity reinforces our interests in developing lumber trade from Russia. Russia is ideal as it is the only region in the world that has large volumes of wood with such close proximity to China's market."
Cathay Forest says its strategy is to develop sustainable, regenerative forest assets, and the company has already developed poplar plantations and acquired standing timber properties in China. The company will continue expanding its China-based timber properties and is also increasing commercial timber activities in Russian border areas.
The company expects it is now able to import a total of 150,000 cubic meters of round wood from Russia this year. The lumber brought in via barge is further transported to northern China's largest wood trading market located in Dalian, Liaoning Province.
